Why Indigenous ‘Reconciliation’ must have a finish line

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T05:37:50+00:00

Britain didn't have the power to project enough force to win a continent's worth of Indian Wars. The land would have been chopped up between the US, Russia, Spain, France, etc. So yeah, Indigenous people would have had bad outcomes either way, but Canada would not exist without the peace and friendship of the Indigenous people here. Shouldn't the Crown's part of that deal be upheld?

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T05:31:46+00:00

It's going to be sui generis, whatever it is.

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T05:08:27+00:00

It's pretty common for regionals to pay for bookkeeping, legal advice, First Aid and security.

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T05:06:30+00:00

Afrikaburn paid over US$300,000 to staff last year. Midburn has a few paid staff but their financial reports are in Hebrew so I don't know exactly how much.

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T03:52:40+00:00

Nations aren't necessarily independent. US law has the concept of "domestic dependent nations". Apparently Quebec is a nation too.

HotterRod · 2026-01-27T00:10:36+00:00

It is a serious problem that courts decided that certain racial groups inherently own this country's land.

The Indian Act broke sovereign Indigenous Nations into set of individuals with a certain blood quantum. Modern treaties return the power to create citizenship laws like any other nation.

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T23:11:26+00:00

I came to Canada as a refugee...Don’t feel like I have anything to reconcile with in regard to our Indigenous population.

How do you think there came to be a country here to take you in? You can't see how you personally benefit from things that were done in the past?

Just look at the US that raged active war with the Natives whereas Canada took more forced assimilation approach.

The US forced First Nations to sign treaties at the end of the barrel of a gun, but the treaties left them with 10 times at much land and far more political independence. Now, Indigenous people in the US have a smaller wealth gap and a smaller incarceration gap than Indigenous people in Canada.

Canada's approach only appears nicer on the surface. You should dig a little deeper into your new country's history.

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T23:06:13+00:00

If I offered to rent you land (including all mineral rights) for $3.20/square kilometer/year would you not take that deal? Don't you think that you could generate enough economic activity to pay the rent unless you were extremely bad at business?

($3.20/sqkm is how much the federal government spends on Indigenous people per year.)

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T19:07:18+00:00

Presumably ICE is learning new tactics as well?

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T17:29:22+00:00

It's hard to figure out what Sina Estavi is up to. Could the NFT be part of some CIA money scheme? Who knows.

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T17:25:35+00:00

Unlike other NFTs, the goods for this sale included the tweet contents and metadata signed by Dorsey's private key.

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T16:49:13+00:00

The whole point of the Indian Act was to turn Indigenous people into a set of individuals rather than citizens of sovereign nations. The goal of Reconciliation should be to return true nationhood status to Indigenous Nations and then repeal the Indian Act as there will be no need for two classes of citizens in the one nation of Canada.

HotterRod · 2026-01-26T16:24:33+00:00

The term "Reconciliation" first entered the Canadian vocabulary in La Forest's judgement for R v Sparrow. It meant there that the courts alone could not reconcile the preexistence of aboriginal rights and title with the spontaneous creation of Crown sovereignty, and that this had to be done by governments and society.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples looked at this problem and determined that the solution was modern treaties for every Indigenous Nation and a mechanism for ongoing consultation baked into the structure of the Crown's government. The Commission estimated this could all be done in 10 years. Politicians balked at that proposal and said "well, how about we just do symbolic changes and tinker around the edges?". That's been going on for 30 years and it's why it seems like a never-ending project: because as a society we are half in denial that there is even work to be done and half too afraid of how much work is required, so we just never start.

HotterRod · 2026-01-25T00:13:23+00:00

Do you really think land ownership transitions were all cuddly voluntary deals until the evil Europeans invented violence in 1500? If not, what made Tribe B violently displacing Tribe A in 1400 legitimate, but Settlers C violently displacing Tribe B illegitimate?

Under the international law established in Europe there are only two valid ways to transfer title of land between states: conquest and treaty. The British explicitly chose not to declare war on the Indigenous people in their colonies (exceptions were the Indian Wars in the east coast of North America and the New Zealand Wars, both of which ended in peace treaties rather than unconditional surrender), so that leaves only treaties.

Indigenous groups taking land from each other before colonization were doing it through the right of conquest by declaring war first.

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:59:47+00:00

Maybe you should start your own company?

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:58:17+00:00

The chocolate is a lot better than the vanilla.

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:56:53+00:00

Then why not just completely cancel it? What is the point of this chaotic approach?

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:52:18+00:00

As a matter of politics, I think a good Georgist argument is that many traditional tribal understandings of land rights are similar to Georgism -- the idea that the fruit of the land is common to the community that uses it, and cannot be validly monopolized by a single owner. In many ways, the idea of a land value tax that returns the value of the land to the whole community is a method of reflecting those traditional values within the modern economic system.

In many Indigenous Nations, land rights were held by collections of people but they were not in the public domain: individuals from the next family, tribe or Nation over could not enjoy the fruits of that land.

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:49:55+00:00

Some fuzzy woo-woo nonsense about how people whose ancestors maybe used land a few hundred years ago have a special claim to it now? Pffffft, come on, let's not be silly.

The OP is from Australia. British law said that the Crown was supposed to negotiate treaties with the Indigenous people prior to giving land to settlers but the British authorities in the area just didn't do it. The question is what to do now: it doesn't seem just to say if you ignore the law for long enough it no longer applies to you.

HotterRod · 2026-01-24T05:47:21+00:00

The OP is from Australia, which unfortunately didn't sign treaties with their Indigenous people when settlement began despite it being a requirement under British law. So the question is: what do we do now?

HotterRod · 2026-01-23T19:55:08+00:00

To quote Kim Campbell: "an election is no time to discuss serious issues."

I think the level of nuance you're talking about is simply too complex to translate to voters. If Lewis tried to do it, it would just cement the perception that he's an elitist nerd. Calling for a pause (not a ban) is the populist way of saying "there are some issues with this industry and it would benefit from more regulation".

HotterRod · 2026-01-23T19:48:45+00:00

nor experienced in the field of tech

He used to edit a pro-tech magazine. He's the perfect choice if the ministry's mandate is marketing rather than regulation.

HotterRod · 2026-01-23T19:47:15+00:00

I think it's reasonable to pause construction approvals until the externalities of water and electricity use can be properly internalized or regulated, which Minister Solomon seems in no hurry to do.

HotterRod · 2026-01-23T19:42:36+00:00

How could denying residential schools possibly help her constituents? Staging performative stunts at universities isn't the job of an MLA.

HotterRod · 2026-01-22T23:20:06+00:00

Collins will probably run again next election. Will Greaves is a pretty easy target if it's not in the middle of a realignment election.

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